Southern Fall/Winter 2022

New York City, a place of dreams, attracts
talented young people in search of exciting
new lives or big career steps.
Matthew Turke, a 2003 BSC graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English
and a theatre minor, moved to New York in 2010, and his experience there has
been an exceptionally good one — professionally and personally.
Working in his dream career of film and video, Turke is executive
producer at ODD (Office of Development & Design), a Manhattan
company that creates commercials for clients like Pepsi and Budweiser and
works on videos and documentaries.
He and his wife, Hillary Helmling, met through mutual friends in 2005,
and reconnected in 2012 at a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS event
in New York. They were married in Central Park in 2016 — Turke says, “Fun
fact: our engagement story was considered one of The New York Times’
Best Proposals of 2016.” They have a son, Hunter, born in 2018, and a
daughter, Hattie, born in 2020.
Turke loves the Big Apple’s ever-present energy and excitement.
“You step out of your apartment, and you feel the buzz of the city through
your body from the ground,” he says. “Every second in New York City
there are millions of people taking billions of steps, there’s a steady flow of
transportation above ground and underground — subways, taxis, buses — and
there’s the constant reminders of construction and jackhammers that the city
is always changing, which makes New York City one big vibrating island.”
Turke’s path to New York and ODD began when he directed a one-act
version of a Mark Medoff play at BSC.
“It was then that I knew I had discovered my passion for directing, creating,
and producing,” he says.
He worked in the industry in Los Angeles before relocating to New York.
ODD’s recent projects include the Budweiser campaign for the 2022
Major League Baseball All-Star Game, working with director Joseph Kahn to
recreate pop singer Rick Astley’s famous “Never Gonna Give You Up” music
video for InsurAAAnce, and a lyric video for the Taylor Swift song, “Look
What You Made Me Do.”
ODD produced Pepsi spots to promote the 2022 Super Bowl halftime
show, which aired during the NFL playoffs and during the Super Bowl Pre-
Game show, and a Bud Light Zero ad that aired during the first quarter of the
Super Bowl, an event that Turke calls the “Academy Awards of commercials.”
“Creating anything for it is exciting, fun, challenging, stressful, and
terrifying — especially considering the amount of money spent and attention
received,” Turke says.
Turke loves the art of commercials, which he calls “30-second films” and
“a unique challenge in storytelling.” Turke has also worked on acclaimed
documentaries, including “Icarus,” “Blackfish,” and “Bring Your Own Brigade.”
“We’re helping tell a story — and, more often than not, one that is
informative and educational that highlights something that might not
otherwise be brought to the light of day,” he says.
YOU STEP OUT OF YOUR APARTMENT, AND
YOU FEEL THE BUZZ OF THE CITY THROUGH
YOUR BODY FROM THE GROUND.
Turke also continues to appreciate that New York “buzz” he mentioned.
“The energy pulses through you as you commute each morning, ruminates
within you throughout the workday, and reprises all over again as you step out
of the office on your way to dinner, or to a bar, or a show, or a concert, or a
rooftop, or to your home to find the solitude in a small place you call your own
in the big city.”
MATTHEW TURKE ’03
FALL/WINTER 2022 / 43